


Burnt Norton.

by reidbyers



Series: Honeymoon Series. [8]
Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1950s, F/M, Reader-Insert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-20
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-17 13:08:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11852229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reidbyers/pseuds/reidbyers
Summary: Spencer was undeniably the most beautiful man you’d ever met, just the knowledge that he had fallen for you was enough to make your knees weak. Everything felt perfect, of course nothing could be perfect forever and reality quickly came crashing down.





	Burnt Norton.

“Oh Spencer, it’s beautiful!” You exclaimed, a large garden expanded out in front of you filled with flowers of all colours and sizes, the majority being roses of the pink and white variety but also Carnations and the occasional yellow rose; the flowers Spencer had gotten you the first night he came to your apartment. It was simply stunning, the sort of thing you’d see in a movie and yet here it was right in front of your eyes. It reminded you of the ending shot of those romance films you’d wished to be in when you were a little girl, a beautiful man beside you with only your best interests at heart.

“You haven’t even seen the best part yet.” You looked up at Spencer and felt yourself lose your breath at the sight of him, he was so beautiful. There were two kinds of beautiful, the first kind only prompted negativity, jealousy and envy as the individual either tried to come to terms with how something could be so beautiful or try to learn how they too could exist in such an ethereal manner. The second kind of beautiful brought only positivity, when you knew something so beautiful existed in the world everything felt like it had purpose, it made you want to live your life with the knowledge that beauty like that had found its way into your life. Spencer was that kind of beautiful, merely his existence there was enough to make everything feel filled with meaning.

He extended his hand out to you and you lay your hand against it, smiling when he closed his fingers over yours before leading you down the grey stone steps that went down onto the emerald green grass, it was so beautiful and well kept that it didn’t look real despite you knowing it was. You almost felt bad walking on it, the strands tickling your bare feet as Spencer lead you down the garden. It was only then that you realised what you were wearing, a long flowy dress that was verging on being see through but wasn’t sexual in the slightest. It was almost goddess like, made you feel like you were floating.

You didn’t realise where Spencer had been taking you until you arrived, at the bottom of the garden that had been hidden by large trees with their roots curling and twisting across the ground, blossoming with green leaves filled with life and joyously blowing in the light wind. There was a large Blossom tree sitting there, pink like cotton candy and just as sweet. Underneath the tree with her flowers falling lightly like a child throwing petals down a wedding aisle sat a bench, roots curling up over the armrests which only made it look more like a scene from a child’s fairy tale.

“What is this place?” You asked as Spencer lead you over to the bench and let you sit down first before he sat down beside you, blossom catching and nesting in the soft curls of his hair. He looked so incredibly gentle, his little button nose dipped up into the air as he looked around him at all the nature surrounding you.

“It reminded me of you.” Spencer said simply before reaching up and brushing his hair free from all the blossom that had been shed, it was redundant though because the Cherry Blossom did not stop shedding over you, much like the confetti thrown over a newly wedded married couple. All of this, all this undeniable beauty, this place filled with life and colour and the feeling of complete and utter peace. He’d found this place and thought of you, was there ever to be a compliment better than that?

You were too busy taking in all that beauty around you to notice that Spencer’s hands were gravitating towards your face like an astronaut on their way back to their ship and before you knew it he was cupping your face and turning you so that he could kiss you. Part of you wondered if you had ever felt lips this soft before, like the skin of a nectarine or like hair swimming underwater. It seemed impossible that someone would have lips this perfect, sweet like butterscotch candy while also being so plump and kissable, free from a cupids bow but making you fall deeper in love nonetheless.

How gently he cradled you face within his hands, like you were the most precious thing he had ever and would ever come to touch. His hands were also incredibly soft, everything about him heavenly to a point where you questioned if this could really be real. You felt like you could spend an eternity just looking at him and have that be a fulfilled life, learning the placement of each freckle and naming each of them until his skin became a storybook for you to read and know page to page. Maybe you didn’t need a life of fame and fortune, your whole life it had been what you’d been chasing but now you knew that someone like this existed, maybe this was all you needed.

“I love you.” The words came out so easily, never had you meant something more in your life. It was impossible not to love someone like him, all Spencer had done in the months you’d known him was do whatever it took to make you happy and not for a second think about giving up your needs for his. That was all he did, put the needs of others before himself and that in itself was a beautiful trait. Perhaps everything was beautiful in its own way, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that crap but surely everyone could agree that Spencer was as close to being universally agreed upon that he was as lose to heavenly as possible.

All you could do was look up at Spencer as he pulled away from the kiss, his lips still in that slight pout and his lashes gently fluttering as he opened his eyes. You almost found yourself whimpering at the sight of him, amongst this garden that wouldn’t look out of place in the era of Romanticism. All your life you had heard that you were beautiful, a compliment you accepted gracefully but had somewhat of an empty meaning. Now though, now it had so much more to it than ever before.

Spencer didn’t even look the slightest bit worried that you had just told him that you loved him, you weren’t even sure what your relationship was and yet here you were confessing your love. For anyone else that would have been a red light and they would have freaked out but Spencer just seemed peaceful, almost like he already guessed you were going to say that. He smiled, the small creases around his lips appearing and you found yourself desperate to kiss them, small dents in his skin that would some day remind everyone that he had smiled plenty.

“I know.” He said simply, that tranquil voice of his making you feel so feel so much better despite him not saying it back. Did he have to? Love wasn’t always a shared thing, the most beautiful and well known love stories were filled with tragedy and often created by one person who loved far much more than the other. That didn’t make love bad because by default, loving was always good and always worth it. He didn’t need to say it back, maybe it meant more that he didn’t and yet had stayed.

You let out a soft sigh of contentment as Spencer caressed your cheek with the back of his fingers, his knuckles brushing against your skin and tickling your light peach fuzz. Nuzzling against his hand much like a cat begging to be pet, you let your eyes close once more and just enjoyed the feeling of the sunlight streaming down on you. Everything was perfect, you had the most perfect man in front of you with a halo of blossom in his hair and the sunshine leaving you kissed and smiling. Life was perfect, you didn’t need the fame and bright lights, magazine spreads and movie premiers. No, all you needed was this.

A harsh jolt made you open your eyes and instead of being met with the sight of your angelic Spencer you were met with the dull grey of the back of a plane chair. Your stomach sank quicker than anything as you realised that it had all been a dream, your brain had conjuried it all up like some sick joke. You weren’t in some beautiful garden with an equally beautiful boy, you were in a cramped plane with coughing businessmen and rich women with their snotty children, Spencer was with you but not with flowers in his hair and a smile on his face. He was sat beside you but frankly you knew that if he could have changed seats he would have done, after what happened outside of that club.

When you turned to look at Spencer you were met with the sight of him reading some book, his hair was a mess and his face was still quite scruffy where as in your dream he had been completely clean shaven. He looked exhausted, dark circles underneath his eyes and his lips sore probably from licking them repeatedly. Slowly your memory started to return and you remembered that you were on your flight back to New York, Spencer had disappeared from the club the night before and had turned back up at the motel at around 2am. Sleeping next to him was awkward when you knew that he was displeased with how you had reacted to him defending you but he had refused to be that petty and sleep on the floor or some nonsense like in the car.

The morning packing your things had been awkward and silent, none of that playful banter you had founded your relationship on. As had been the drive to the airport, you recalled looking back to the Honeymoon Motel in the mirror as it became a tiny pastel dot in the distance and you felt your chest ache at the realisation you probably were not going to return there again. Everywhere you had gone on the vacation you’d thought about how you’d be leaving a little part of yourself there with it, at the beach and even the club despite the events that occurred. It was sentimental and probably stupid to think that for some reason the world would be able to remember where good things happened but you liked to imagine that by leaving some good energy in places then maybe good things would continue to happen there.

“You were saying my name.” Spencer drew you out of your thoughts with his voice, slightly hoarser than you had remembered it in your dream. You felt your cheeks heat up as you adjusted yourself in your seat and glanced around at the people around you, no one was paying attention to you and you hoped that meant no one recognised you or just no one cared enough. What were you supposed to tell him? That you’d had a dream where you in were what you could only describe as heaven and you confessed your love for him, a love you weren’t sure you had for him until less than a minute ago?

“Oh, really?” You tried to play it off as casual, not as big of a deal as you were making it out to be in your head. In reality you didn’t know how upset Spencer was with you because you hadn’t had the chance to talk about it but you could only guess that he was still annoyed that you would shoot him down for almost referring to you as his girlfriend. Even though you weren’t, could you blame him for thinking so? Friends didn’t take trips across the country and end up fucking in a motel room and on a beach, sharing personal stories and dancing for the sunset with bare toes against the carpet.

Spencer hummed softly in agreement, not looking up from his book once to acknowledge you with more than his words. It was so different to how Spencer usually interacted with you that he was slowly starting to feel like a different person, this wasn’t the sweet and awkward man you first met and this wasn’t even the slightly more confident one with his thoughts constantly on how he could please you. This Spencer was one who was looking out for himself and you felt bad disliking that, no matter how much you disliked how he’d handled the harassment at the club he was his own person and had to handle it in his own way. He wasn’t your puppy, you couldn’t scold him when he was bad and expect him to do better.

You could only hold back a sigh and look past Spencer at the tiny window, grey clouds perched outside the window only adding to the already dull aesthetic going on. Everything felt heavy and gloomy, not the kind of place you wanted to be and certainly not the ending you wanted to your vacation with Spencer. So instead of sitting there feeling sorry for yourself you closed your eyes and lay your head back against the seat, hoping that your brain would be kind and allow you another lovely dream. Anything would be better than this, this plane miles up in the sky filled with people who did not want to be there and three words on the tip of your tongue you had to swallow back. 


End file.
